Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Mahatma Gandhi changed the world by his teachings: Joe Biden

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, centre, wife Jill Biden, left, Tara Gandhi, the granddaughter of Mahatma Gandhi, right, at Gandhi Smriti in New Delhi on July 22.

US Vice President Joe Biden today described Mahatma Gandhi as "one man who changed the world by his teachings".

"What a high honor and great privilege to be here in this sacred spot - memorializing one man who changed the world," Biden wrote in the visitors' book at Gandhi Smriti at Tees January Marg here, the place where Gandhi's life ended on 30 January 1948.

Saturday, July 13, 2013

Malala Yousafzai invokes Mahatma Gandhi in her UN speech

Pakistani teen activist Malala Yousafzai, in her first public speech at the United Nations since being shot in the head by the Taliban, has said she is inspired by Mahatma Gandhi's path of non-violence.

Malala invoked Gandhi and other global advocates of non-violence stressing that, "I'm not against anyone, neither am I here to speak in terms of personal revenge against the Taliban, or any other terrorist group."

"I'm here to speak about the right of education for every child," Malala said, in an impassioned address to the UN Youth Assembly on Friday.

Friday, July 5, 2013

How relevant is Gandhi's nonviolence?

Nonviolence is a philosophy, an existing theory and a practice, a lifestyle, and a means of social, political and economic struggle as old as history itself. From ancient times to the present times, people have renounced violence as a means of resolving disputes. They have opted instead for negotiation, mediation and reconciliation, thereby resisting violence with a militant and uncompromising nonviolence and respect for the integrity of all human beings, friends and enemies alike.

Nonviolence provides us with tools, the positive means to oppose and stop wars and preparations for war, to resist violence, to struggle against racial, sexual and economic oppression and discrimination and to seek social justice and genuine democracy for people throughout the world. In a very real sense, nonviolence is the leaven for the bread that is a new society freed from oppression and bloodshed, a world in which persons can fulfill their individual potentials to the fullest.

Thursday, July 4, 2013

Ecology and Lifestyle: A Gandhian Perspective

By M. P. Mathai

Rising Awareness, Chronic Inertia

The ecological crisis we confront today has been analysed from various angles and scientific data on the state of our environment made available. Humanity has come out of its foolish self-complacency and has awakened to the realisation that over-exploitation of nature has led to a very severe degradation and devastation of our environment. Scholars, through several studies, have brought out the direct connection between consumption and environmental degradation. For example, Inge Ropke in his paper 'The dynamics of willingness to consume' raises pertinent questions like: why are productivity increases largely transformed into income increases instead of more leisure? Why is such a large part of these income increases used for consumption of goods and services with a relatively high materials-intensity instead of less material-intensive alternatives?

The climate change experienced today has convinced many that unless we take urgent remedial measures life might be wiped out of the face of the Earth. There have been several international summits and important conventions have been signed. But to our great dismay, most of the provisions of these covenants have been blatantly violated, rather than scrupulously honoured and implemented. Awareness of the issues involved has become almost universal, but the determination to take corrective steps is sorely missing.

The most pertinent question today, therefore, seems to be: 'why these violations?' Why sidestep the most crucial existential issues relating to the protection of eco-system? One direct answer to this vexing question is that we are not willing to change our lifestyles, the way we live. We have developed, adopted and internalised the values of a lifestyle which is a part of an unsustainable and destructive development paradigm. We seem to cherish it so deeply and religiously, so to say, that we can neither abjure nor modify it. Modern lifestyle has become addictive and has succeeding in entrapping an ever growing number to its fold, particularly the emerging middle classes. It could be reasonably argued that one of the most important reasons why humanity is not able to retrace its steps from the perilous path of self-annihilating eco-destruction is its addiction to modern or contemporary lifestyle.